Interested
by whirlgig
Summary: Missing Moment from DH. “He’s brooding,” Ron explains to Ginny, as though she doesn't already know.


**Interested**

"He's doing it again." Ron shatters the painstakingly constructed illusion that they couldn't see Harry sitting on the front porch; that they, in fact, hadn't been able to see him sitting there since eleven o'clock that morning.

"He's _brooding,"_Ron explains to Ginny, as though she doesn't already know. As though all she thinks about isn't him, and how he's doing and what he's thinking, and why he hasn't spoken to her since his fit of nobility down at the lake back at Hogwarts, despite everything that happened two nights ago and how she thought that maybe, possibly, something might almost have happened if they had been alone in the garden for a tiny bit longer. She didn't care what; any something from Harry is better than this nothing at all.

Ron is giving her meaningful looks, and Ginny can tell that he thinks she doesn't understand what he is trying to tell her. As though she isn't already painfully aware of Harry and his every everything. She knows, dimly, that it is stupid and selfish to be wallowing in self-pity over a boy when people's families are being ripped apart, but she can't help it. She's Ginny Weasley; caring about Harry is sort of her thing_._ She wouldn't know how to stop if she tried.

She sighs in Ron's general direction and slumps over the worn, scrubbed surface of the kitchen table, feeling a little bit like a jilted heroine in one of her mum's 'special' books; the ones Ginny had never been allowed to read when she was younger.

"He won't stop by himself, you know." Ron is incorrigible. "Go yell at him or something."

"I can't, Ron. I'm not, I don't know, I'm not really_allowed_ to anymore." With one ear pressed to the surface of the wood, Ginny doesn't so much hear her answer as feel it, vibrations muffling the words, making everything louder but more indistinct as her face squishes awkwardly against the table.

This close she can smell the woody scent that, more than anything else, reminds her of being young. Really properly_young_, in every sense of the word, when her world was confined to this house, this kitchen with these sounds and these smells and her mum letting her lick the icing from the spoon or steal some uncooked biscuit dough from the bowl. Sitting on this table, her mum had taken her finger countless times and placed it on the knot of the ribbons of countless presents, telling her to hold it steady while she finished the bow, saying that no one should ever wrap a present alone, and Ginny remembers thinking that the absolute worst thing in the world would be not having someone there to hold the knot in place for you. Back then, Voldemort had been a story that Fred and George would scare her with, and she would run to her dad to be scooped up and hide her face in his shoulder, safe in the knowledge that Dad would be glaring at the twins over her head as he rubbed comforting circles on her back. When Harry Potter was just a name she felt sorry for, because he didn't have anyone to hold the knot for him, and what about when he had to learn to tie his shoelaces?

Now Ginny knows better. She knows that there are worse things than not being able to tie bows; things like war and murder and prophecies and not being allowed to be afraid for the person you love because you aren't allowed to tell him how you feel because that would be _selfish,_ but you do it anyway, being so afraid for him and everyone else that you love that you can't sleep at night in case something happens, and what if you were asleep and something happened and you didn't even _try?_

"Come on, Gin, can you really tell me it doesn't bother you, even a little bit?" Ron's exasperated voice cuts through her thoughts and she lifts her head up off the table, snorting a little bit at the stupidity of the question.

"Bother me? _Flies_ bother me, Ron. Running out of conditioner _bothers_ me. Harry doing this, this, not speaking _thing_ is--" _The scariest thing in the world_, she thinks. "I don't even have a word for it."

"So tell him that."

"You tell him that," she bites back, just to be contrary.

"Oh yeah, I'll go up to my best mate and say, 'my little sister, who you've been groping for the last month, wants you to know that she doesn't have a word for how she feels about you not speaking.'"

Ginny feels a tug at the corner of her mouth despite herself, and she slaps Ron's arm in a tired sort of a way as he continues.

"I've _tried,_ Gin, I really have, but he's just--" Ron pauses, and Ginny thinks, _I know_.

"I really think--" And here Ron screws his face up as though he's just swallowed a sour Bertie Bott's bean (one of the yellow ones) "--that you should talk to him. You make him--" Ron looks deeply awkward and there is a pause, a swallow, then "--happy," is grunted out. "So just go do it, please, so Harry can stop moping around, because it's bloody depressing, and I can tell Hermione I did what she asked and we can all start to figure out how exactly we're going to do this bloody thing when we leave--" Ron stops abruptly and looks up at Ginny, who is staring back at him.

A heavy silence falls and Ginny has to know; she has been trying to overlook it, but now it is here, staring her in the face, and she can't ignore it any longer.

"So, Mum's right, then. You're going," she says flatly.

"Yeah." Ron says this slowly, as though he is a little afraid of her reaction.

"All of you?"

"Yeah."

"Right."

"Yeah."

"And I suppose there's no way--"

"No."

"Right. Right then."

And Ginny gets up before she can change her mind, because what if he leaves and she hasn't at least tried? She had always assumed that she would tell him eventually, but she had imagined it would be in some far off tomorrow place, when it was all over, but now. Now there are only a few days left 'til his birthday, and then it's the wedding, and then, nothing. He doesn't have a reason to stay after that. And in this moment, she can think of the scariest, worst thing that could happen; that he might leave and never come back and she won't ever be able to tell him how she feels, how she thinks that she's not sure she knows how to be Ginny Weasley without a Harry Potter around for her to love. She had packed this fact away out of sight because she didn't want to think about it, because if she did then she knew she would start wanting to do something about it, like a present that arrives a few days early but you're not allowed to open it until your birthday, because you don't want to seem selfish or greedy or--

Well, screw that.

* * * * * * *

"Harry!"

Harry's head snaps up as Ginny bangs open the front door, a look on her face that makes him want to simultaneously kiss her or flee, but he can't do either so he settles for gulping and fiddling with his glasses.

"Harry James Potter, I want to talk to you."

She has used his middle name. This will not be pleasant.

"Er." Harry rubs his suddenly sweaty palms on his jeans, because he thinks he knows what is coming and he isn't looking forward to it. "What about?"

Ginny rolls her eyes, unimpressed. "So you _can_actually speak then? I wasn't sure; I thought maybe you'd injured your ability to talk when you stalked out of here the other night, mumbling about fresh air. Did you get too much of it or something?" Ginny's tone drips acid and Harry feels each word sizzle into his skin, and he starts to see red. After all this time, she _still_ didn't get it.

"You're bloody impossible, you know that?" He is so _tired._

Ginny looks taken aback, but only for a moment, because then she crosses her arms and raises her eyebrows and says, "_I'm_ impossible?" as though it is the stupidest thing she has ever heard, and maybe it is because being with her is actually the easiest thing_ever_, it's the being apart that's impossible, but of course he can't tell her that because he has plans - noble ones, and Harry regrets even opening his mouth but ploughs on resolutely anyway, because that's the sort of person he is.

"You are. You're bloody impossible. What did you expect me to do?" Harry is standing now, gesturing wildly, and Ginny shrinks back a little as he continues. "Waltz in here and sweep you off your feet with your entire family watching while _there's a war going on_?"

"Well--I--of course not." Ginny bristles at the tone he is using, as though she is a stupid little girl, and feels herself growing resentful. Wasn't she supposed to be yelling at him? How had this happened?

"Right, so excuse me if I _offended_ you in some way--"

"Offended me? Harry, you haven't offended me, that's not it at all--"

Harry huffs impatiently and Ginny sort of wants to slap him. "Well, then what is it? I don't have a lot of time."

Now Ginny really wants to slap him. "Oh, I'm _so_ _sorry_ for cutting in on your important _moping_ time, Harry, I should have realised you weren't to be disturbed."

Really grasping the crux of the matter, "I'm not _moping,"_Harry informs her sulkily.

"Well, what are you doing then?" Ginny is trying to be reasonable but he is making it very, very difficult, and she takes a deep, calming breath. In, two-three, out, two-three.

There is a long silence during which Harry opens his mouth, closes it, and toes his sneaker with the other foot, studying the ground. Finally,

"I'm brooding."

Harry flashes her a brief smile, but Ginny isn't in the mood, and she rolls her eyes again - it's becoming a bad habit around Harry -

"You're an idiot, is what you are," she snaps.

Harry flushes and jerks his head up, eyes flashing behind his glasses. "I'm not an idiot! I just have a lot of thinking to do." Harry looks slightly beleaguered as he says, "I'm just. I'm trying to sort out my next step."

"Your next step?" She speaks slowly, because she isn't entirely sure what he is talking about.

"Where I go from here." He clearly thinks he is explaining things very well, but Ginny thinks that maybe he is just a little bit too close to the situation and attempts to pull him back.

"Do you mean when you guys leave? Or more...metaphorically?" She feels stupid asking him in this way but can't think of another way to word it, and Harry smiles a little and shrugs.

"Both, I guess. I dunno. It's all just. It's all a bit--" Harry is having trouble getting any words out at all and is blinking furiously down at the ground. His next words come in a rush, as though he is exhaling after holding his breath for a long time.

"I mean, it's all so fucked up. Dumbledore...he's dead, Mad-Eye's dead." He looks up at Ginny and there is something in his eyes that makes her catch her breath. This is the first time he has told her what is going through his mind since before Dumbledore died, and she feels like she is teetering on the edge of something vital, and so she stares right back, waiting.

He slumps against the wall of the house suddenly, shoulders hunched, hands in pockets, and Ginny knows that he has decided to let her in but immediately wishes he hadn't, because his next words just about break her heart.

"If _they_ can die, Gin--" His eyes are a little bit pleading as he looks at her, and Ginny feels sick because the thought that he might fail is stuck in the air so loudly between them he might as well have shouted it. Ginny starts shaking her head because no, that couldn't -

"What chance do I have?" The words hang heavy and harsh and Ginny waits for them to swirl and fade but they don't, and she suddenly feels very young and hopelessly inadequate, because this is so much huger than anything she has faced before. But she is going to try, because he is hurting and she can't do nothing, so she stares at him, formulating an answer in her head because she realises that this moment, right here, is significant.

"Well," she begins slowly, "if we're talking about chances here..." Harry shifts slightly against the wall, listening.

"Chances were that you should never have survived in the first place. You should have died about twenty times over in the past sixteen--nearly seventeen--years, Harry."

Harry grimaces. "Is this meant to be encouraging?"

She ignores him, saying, "But you _haven't."_

Harry starts to protest but she brushes past this, persisting.

"It isn't all just down to luck, Harry. I watched you in the Department; the entire time the Death Eaters were there, you kept them talking, and while you were doing that you were figuring out where the exits were and how to get there. You came up with a plan and managed to get us all out of there."

Harry tries to interrupt again, but she is relentless.

"Fourth year, you dragged Cedric back with you while you were running for your life. I don't think you realise how many people wouldn't have done that, not because they're cruel or mean, but because they would have been too busy thinking of themselves and how to get out of there. Last year, you were running off to Merlin knows where to do Merlin knows what with Dumbledore, which I still haven't forgiven you for not telling me about, by the way, but that is beside the point."

Harry smiles a little and Ginny, heartened, continues.

"You still managed to give us the potion and the map, even though you were completely focussed on something else. That's--" Here she stumbles, searching for the right words.

"That's presence of mind, Harry. No one your age has that. They'd be too busy freaking out over what they're about to do, but your mind goes a million miles a minute and you're always three steps ahead, no matter what you're doing. I know you might feel as though it's all an accident at the end when you get out of there alive, Harry, but if you hadn't have taken those steps in the first place..." She trails off.

"The fact remains, Harry, that chances are--" Her inflection rises as though she is asking him a question. She takes a breath.

"Chances are, you'll make it."

She looks up at him as she says this last part, to find him staring back at her, green eyes boring into hers, and she swallows thickly. Even after all this time, he still makes her nervous.

"Gin," he says, and the nickname is so soft, so familiar on his lips that she wants to hug him forgets for a second that she isn't allowed to do that anymore, and she takes a step towards him and thinks for an instant _this is it,_ but then he stiffens and she stops, feeling stupid, all the triumph that comes from having said the right thing forgotten.

"Gin," he says again, more forceful this time. "We can't."

Ginny stamps her foot in frustration because if he is going to treat her like a child then she is going to bloody well act like one.

"Why _not?_" she almost whines and hates herself for it. "I just want you to know--"

"I _can't--_"

"But if you would just _listen,_ then maybe--"

"I _can't,_ Gin," he sighs in frustration, but his voice is softer and he looks her straight in the eyes as he says, "No matter how much I might want to hear it, I can't."

"That is so unfair."

"I know. I wish I could tell you how I feel, too."

Ginny freezes, and Harry looks as though he hasn't realised what he has just said, but he has just said something about having _feelings,_and -

"How you feel?" Ginny asks, because she can't _not_; that would be ridiculous.

"Er," Harry says, because he thinks something important might be happening but he's not entirely sure what.

Ginny sighs, realising she will have to spell it out for him. "I know you _can't,_and all, but I just want to know--" She takes a breath "--if, if after--after this, after everything, if you might be--" She pauses "--interested."

Harry snorts.

"What?" she says angrily.

"Interested? Interested is for when you're interested in learning a new language or--or--" Harry flounders, flicking his hand through the air as though trying to pick up the right words.

"Or, I don't know, interested in quilting or something."

Ginny's mouth twitches because, quilting? Really?

Harry rubs an awkward hand through his hair at her expression, harassed. "Well, I don't know, it's something people could be interested in, isn't it?"

Ginny sighs, because that sentence is so very telling of the fact that Harry wouldn't even know how to have fun if it danced right up to him and handed him and three friends all access passes to the Quidditch World Cup. And the after party.

"You're off-topic, Harry," she reminds him gently.

"Right. Right. Well, yeah. Interested is just. It's just not the word I would use to describe how I feel about you, Gin."

"Which word would you use, then?" and Ginny _sounds_calm, but her insides are home to live snakes as she holds her breath, waiting, but then--

"I shouldn't even be talking about this."

Ginny deflates.

Harry turns his head, so he is looking out at the field next to the house. "About--about my feelings or anything. I mean, it's not, it's not fair to you," Harry mumbles awkwardly, and Ginny inflates again, indignant.

"Oh, shut up about being fair, I don't care about being fair, Harry, I just want to know."

"I thought we'd already sorted this out."

Ginny is gobsmacked.

"I'm sorry, when was this supposed to have happened? Or did you tell me in that special way you have, silently, with no words?"

Harry presses on. "I thought it was clear--that we had sorted all this out at Dumbledore's funeral last year."

"Sorted what out? The fact that you thought what we had was great and a part of someone else's life, but that it couldn't go on because you've got to go off to be noble?"

Harry colours slightly and his jaw slackens a little. "Well, when you put it like that--"

"That's not putting it like anything, Harry, that's what happened."

"Fine." His mouth is slightly open, and Ginny tries hard not to look at it, because if she looks at it she'll remember what it's like to be kissing him, and that way lies madness and stupid conversations that go around in circles. Rather like the one she is in at the moment. She shakes herself because Harry is talking again.

"The thing is," he is saying, "the thing is, is that I can't think about the future the way that other guys can. I can't think, 'when I grow up and have a family,' or even 'when the war is over,' because I'm a part of it, Gin."

Ginny is staring at him and there is a tightening in her chest. She thinks she might have forgotten to breathe, but she can't focus on that right now.

"The reality is that I might not be here after it's over--" Harry isn't looking at her now; Ginny has a feeling that he can't look at her because if he did, he would stop speaking and she doesn't want that to happen, ever. "--and some days it scares the shit out of me."

Ginny gasps a little bit, but doesn't have time to process everything he has just said, because he is talking faster now, unable to stop.

"On bad days, I get so fucking angry I can't _breathe_ thinking about the fact that it might be forever, and it might be really, really soon and I can't make you a part of all that, Gin." He is breathing heavily, as though he has never said this out loud before, and Ginny has tears in her eyes which she swipes at impatiently, because _Ginny Weasley__doesn't__cry_, and then he is talking again, saying that he 'might not even have a future' and there is a heartbreaking acceptance in that sentence which Ginny wants to shake out of him, shake him back into himself, because he cannot, not, not give up.

He is silent for a moment, spent from saying the things he's never said to anyone before and he looks at her a little desperately, as though he doesn't want to keep going but he can't seem to help himself. She's Ginny Weasley; she just _does_ something to him. He wants to keep talking. He inhales deeply, considering his next words carefully.

"So I don't expect or hope that anyone would be--would be, _interested_or whatever, in a bloke who might not even have a future, all right? That's how I feel." Harry is looking down again, hands back in his pockets, arms straight, shoulders up around his ears as he toes the ground. Ginny can tell that he is nervous.

"Harry." Ginny's voice is shaky and she clears it before going on. "Harry. I am."

His head flicks up, slightly hopeful but not daring to guess at what she might mean by those two words. This makes her smile a little bit, because even though he has just been talking about facing Voldemort, he is still her ex-boyfriend.

Ginny helps him out.

"I am, you know, _interested_, or whatever."

Harry grins and visibly relaxes, and she grins back and she thinks that maybe he starts to lean towards her, but then the sound of her mother yelling for someone to set the table startles them and they jump. They stand there awkwardly together for a moment with too much space between them, and Ginny realises that they might just have promised each other something huge, and it's sort of terrifying but it's also sort of _brilliant,_because Ginny Weasley has just given the Boy Who Lived a reason to keep on living, and she's pretty sure she can deal with that.

End.

A/N: Thanks so much for reading; please leave me a line telling me what you thought! If you're interested, check out some of my other stories at my LJ at.com/

Love Whirl


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